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Authors: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

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BOOK: Boys Rock!
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They saw Eddie, Beth, and Caroline come out on their front steps and stare at them. The UPS truck was coming down the road. It started to turn up the Mal-loys’ drive to deliver a package, then kept going instead. Every car passing the house slowed down so that the driver could read the signs.

Half an hour later, just when Wally felt that he and his brothers were getting the hang of it, a dark green Chevy came into view and began to slow. Then it slowed even more and came to a stop.

Wally couldn’t make out who was driving, but he saw the man roll his window down. Then Coach Mal-loy leaned out the window and said, “Hey, fellas, do you think I could go up my own driveway?”

Fourteen
A Roundtable Discussion

D
ad! Dad’s home!” Caroline shrieked, jumping off the porch and running down the drive to meet her father.

Mr. Malloy got out of the car as his wife and daughters gathered around him.

“George!” Caroline’s mother said, giving him a hug. “We didn’t know you would be coming home!”

“Thought I’d surprise you and drive back for a few days. We’re still negotiating that contract,” Coach Malloy said. He motioned toward the end of the driveway. “Quite a welcoming committee out there, I must say”

“I can’t tell what in the world is going on,” Mrs. Malloy said. “It’s all about the newspaper, I guess, and who is or who is not in charge. But the neighbors have been calling, wondering—”

“I’m editor in chief, so
I’m
in charge,” Eddie declared. “It’s a labor dispute, that’s all.”

“Well, I saw a ‘We Want Justice!’ sign down there,” said her father. “I saw a ‘Down with Tyranny!’ sign. Sounds pretty serious to me. Not exactly the kind of thing I want in front of my house after coaching a football team all year.”

“Oh, nobody will take them seriously,” said Eddie.

“I don’t care,” said Mr. Malloy, picking up his bag. “I want you to end this. Now.”

“Dad!” cried Eddie, Beth, and Caroline together.

“If I give in now, it will show I’ve lost control of the newspaper!” Eddie protested.

“Well? What do you think that picket line tells you? Do the honorable thing, Eddie, and take a vote,” Mr. Malloy said. “And then those guys can go home.” He started for the house, and Mrs. Malloy followed.

The girls looked at each other.

“That’s suicide!” Beth said. “It’s four against three. You
know
how the boys will vote.”

“I don’t care so much about using the baby pictures, though I still think it’s a fun idea. It’s the principle of the thing,” said Eddie. “They tricked us when they named the paper. Now we should get what we want. They are so immature. There must be a way. …”

“Maybe if we stall long enough, they’ll get tired and go home,” Caroline suggested.

Mr. Malloy appeared in the doorway again. “I mean
now
!” he thundered, and Caroline knew he meant it.

“Listen,” Beth said to her sisters. “There’s a swing vote here. Peter’s.”

Eddie and Caroline began to smile.

“And you know what will change his mind,” said Beth.

“Cookies!” Eddie and Caroline said together.

They walked to the end of the driveway, where the boys were parading back and forth between the mailbox and the lilac bush. Peter marched like a soldier, his back straight, his sign high over his head.

“You want to negotiate?” Eddie asked Jake.

“What’s to negotiate?” Jake answered. “We don’t want our baby pictures published,
period
!”

“Well, why don’t you come up to the house where it’s cool and we’ll discuss it,” Eddie told them.

The boys seemed ready for a break.

“All right. A fifteen-minute break, that’s all,” said Josh.

Up the driveway they went. Mr. and Mrs. Malloy were in the living room talking about the job contract back in Ohio. Eddie led the Hatford boys to the kitchen, and they all sat around the big table.

“Now, we just want to discuss this calmly like intelligent human beings,” said Eddie. “A newspaper needs to please its customers, and readers enjoy things like crossword puzzles and quizzes and matching names and stuff. You know how magazines often have pictures of famous people—movie stars and basketball players—and you’re supposed to match them with their high school graduation pictures?”

“We’re not famous people,” said Wally

“Yet!” said Caroline.

“So if we want to please our readers, we need to lose a little pride,” said Eddie. “Beth and Caroline and I are certainly ready to do
our
part. Here are three pictures of us when we were babies.”

She went into the dining room and returned with three photos:

Eddie at eighteen months in baseball pajamas, with a much too large baseball cap all but hiding her eyes. Cute as the dickens.

Beth in an adorable pair of overalls, holding a huge storybook on her lap, bigger than she was, almost, her mouth open as though reading the book to herself. Absolutely precious.

Caroline dressed as an Easter bunny, huge ears towering over her head. Utterly charming.

“Yeah? And where are the pictures you tricked Mom into giving you?” asked Jake.

Eddie went back into the dining room and returned with four more photos. She held them up one at a time, out of the boys’ reach:

Jake in a waterlogged diaper standing out under the sprinkler.

Josh sound asleep in a laundry basket, his T-shirt pulled up, showing his round belly.

Wally with both hands plunged into a birthday cake, half the frosting on his face.

And Peter staring wide-eyed at the camera, a pacifier stuck in his mouth like a cork in a bottle.

“They’re cute!” Caroline insisted.

“No!” said Jake. “They’re embarrassing and stupid.”

“And we
don’t
want you to put them in our paper,” said Josh.

“I know!” said Beth. “Let’s vote! But first, does anyone want some lemonade?”

“I do!” sang out Peter, swinging his legs in anticipation.

“Yeah, I’ll take some,” said Josh.

Eddie got down the glasses and then the ice. She poured each boy a large glass.

“Cookies?” said Beth.

“Yes!” Peter said loudly, starting to grin.

Caroline and Eddie exchanged knowing glances as Beth got the cookie canister and opened it. Her face fell. There was only one broken cookie left, and it was stale. That, and a handful of crumbs.

“Didn’t Mom bake yesterday?” Beth asked in dismay.

“Apparently not,” said Eddie.

Peter stared sullenly down at the piece of cookie in front of him.

“Let’s vote!” said Jake impatiently. “All in favor of putting our baby pictures in the
Hatford Herald
?”

“Aye!” said Eddie, Beth, and Caroline.

“All opposed say no,” said Jake.


No
!”shouted Jake and Josh and Wally and Peter, so loudly that the walls shook.

There was nothing left to do but give the photos back to the boys.

“Okay,” said Eddie with a sigh. “Anybody want to stick around and help me put the paper together?”

“Sure, we’ll help,” said Josh.

When Mr. Malloy walked into the dining room later, he found Eddie at the computer in one corner, Jake and Josh taking papers out of the printer, Peter and Caroline stapling them together, Wally and Beth stacking them in piles, the whole production moving along as if on an assembly line. Anyone would have thought the kids never quarreled. Anyone would have thought that they got along like peas in a pod, grapes in a bunch, sardines in a tin.

“Now, this is what I like to see,” Mr. Malloy said. “Cooperation.” He smiled around the room. “When’s the pub date?”

“Tomorrow,” said Eddie. “We told Mr. Oldaker we’d get them to the bookstore tonight.”

And Caroline asked, “How did the trip go, Dad? Are we going to move back to Ohio or not?”

“Well, I’m about seventy percent sure that we will, but there are still a number of things that bother me about the contract. I’ll be driving back on Monday to see if we can work things out.”

Could she stand to leave this place? Caroline wondered as she put the last newspaper in the box. Did she really want to leave this house? The river, with the swinging footbridge? The old elementary school building with the real stage and velvet curtain?

She looked across the table where Jake and Josh were
grinning at each other, smug and satisfied now that they had gotten their way. She looked at Wally, who had turned one of his pockets inside out and was intently examining the crumbs and lint and paper scraps that had fallen into his hand. At Peter, who was digging one finger up his left nostril. Well, yes and no, she decided. Maybe she wouldn’t mind leaving the Hatfords at all.

Fifteen
Letter from Georgia

Dear Wally (and Jake and Josh and Peter)
:

Of
course
we want to come back to Buckman, and we’re not kissing any Georgia peaches, either. It’s just that we signed up for a bunch of stuff here—Steve’s on a diving team—so we can’t leave till summer’s over. Since the Malloys aren’t sure whether they’re moving back to Ohio or not, Mom said we should keep our house here till September. That will give them time to find another place if they stay. Dad will be back August first, though, so he can start training the football team
.

How does our house look? The girls haven’t changed anything, have they? Boy, they better not do anything to our rooms! We don’t trust those Malloy girls any more than you do
.

Yeah, I’m sorry we couldn’t be in on that newspaper thing. I think I would have liked doing it even if you didn’t. I wouldn’t want Eddie Malloy bossing me around, though. I hope it turns out to be the best newspaper of all
.
I hope everyone in Buckman reads it! I hope the Malloys go back to Ohio for good, and that when we get back from Georgia, everything will be just like it always was
.

Bill (and Danny and Steve and Tony and Doug)

P.S. If you want to be scared out of your socks, your underwear, and the hair on your head, get that old video
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
You won’t sleep for a week after that
.

Sixteen
Uh-oh
BOOK: Boys Rock!
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